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Our 2023 Haiku Competition is on now HERE.
WHO
Anyone in the world, of any age or background, may participate. Among members of the Society of Classical Poets, everyone including Advisory Board members may participate, if not involved in judging the contest. The winner, if not resident in the United States, must have a PayPal account or a bank that accepts US checks, in order to receive prize money.
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PRIZE
$100
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JUDGE
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WHEN
Now until August 15, 2022. Results to be announced August 30, 2022.
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WHERE
Post your entries in the Comments below.
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WHAT
Each competitor may submit up to three haiku of traditional form: three lines per poem with 5 syllables in the first line, 7 syllables in the second, and 5 in the third. Entrants are recommended to conform to other traditional haiku requirements outlined HERE. They should be new poems, written since the closing of the 2021 haiku competition. Although this competition is held in summer, haiku dealing with any season are acceptable.
If you want coaching on haiku features, please read the examples and explanation before submitting your entries. Once entries are posted, they can be revised or withdrawn ONLY by making another Comment. This is permitted until the competition closes, but do take reasonable care to complete work to your satisfaction before you enter it. Please do not use the Comment area as your scratch pad. That is discourteous to other competitors, to interested readers, and to the judge and will disqualify you.
Entries that do not meet basic traditional haiku requirements may be deleted. Anyone who submits more than three entries will have ALL his or her entries disqualified, unless excess entries are clearly withdrawn by a later Comment.
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PAST WINNERS
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Let the winds sit still
And the clouds hold back their tears
‘Til my love comes home.
Storm-bruised summer sky
black-winged, velvet butterfly
time and rain pass by
Singing mockingbird—
this heatwave can’t compete with
your sweet obsession.
As a city screams
its glare, above these barrens
gleams the Milky Way.
Spring’s tomfoolery
can’t fool us; hocus-pocus
and — look! — a crocus!
Fire
We watch stars find their
feet from the Pyrenees peaks
And still there is heat
Flood
Fighting monsoon tears
Rivers run away from here
Carrying feeling
Time
Hands without motion
Locked within ocean frost lost
Just for a moment
grey skies hold gull flights
Haverigg birds sing for us
our lives by the sea
giggles on the breeze
crashing ripples trickle home
sandscape memories
bright reflected sun
hot feet hop as dry beaks drop
whoosh! wings in flight
seabed of seaweed
begins to swim toward daybreak
Cassiopeia
a hull-bound oyster
peeks at me with sea-flecked eyes
joining my journey
midsummer’s night
trying not to tread on
milky reflection
night – I look out
motionless in the moonlight
a cat on the street
©Maurizio Brancaleoni
The street light strobes as
if my lonely walk is a
night at the disco
All winter the buds
prepare to briefly dazzle
before decaying
My worldview is an
onrushing red waterfall when
a rock strikes my head
Moonlight is a balm.
Aromas perfume the air.
After harvesting.
Unbent, I follow
Fading foot-trace in water,
Tears return me home.
Snoring on pillows,
Perfume of sugared wet dog,
Brown eyes bring me home.
A hundred years you
Promised, a flight into stars,
Now ash, all song, gone.
Spring´s new lemon moon,
curved slice of fruit, heaven-made:
birth is bitter sweet.
Scarecrows flank the fields,
worms work the soil night and day:
turkeys smell a rat.
Monsoons flood the fields.
moonlight breast-feeds the foot-hills:
neap tides are turning
Please change in haiku 2 ,line 1, fank to flank! Thank you!
A Leaf strewn by the
wind settles into place and
is then tossed again
My three haikus-
Summer love story
Grass and lady beetle
Swing in the dawn wind
I watch sunflower fields
From the bus going to town
The winking noon sun
Tree shadows stretch far
June dusk on the quiet dirt road
Swans drift back to home
cicadas silent–
a red-spotted butterfly
upon white lupin
the path to the park
lined invitingly with trees–
dark clouds rolling in
entering the park
a few days after the storm–
smell the drying leaves!
Thunder beats the sky
Rain steps across the surface . . .
Hushed now the concert
Forests burn at night
Bright embers float heavenward
Stars light up the sky
Turtle, a green leaf,
blown slowly over the ground
by a lazy breeze
The mockingbird sings
Even more it loves to fight
The crow flies away
whisper “I love you”
quiet so winter can’t hear
or change your sweet mind
I’ve stumbled over your website in trawling the internet at my local library (I’m not on line at home). I’ve x3 haiku to present for inclusion in your Haiku competition which closes mid next month (August 2022).
I trust I’m fllowing the proper entry protocols. The three pieces are as folows:
Fall’s artillery
Acorns spatter on my roof
Rat! Tat! Winter comes
Spent leaf lies dormant
On the breast of another
Winter pieta
Breakdance bravado
Side-walk Cafe Sparrows flit
Trading manoeuvres
Cheers John S.
Thanks for your contributions, John! Please check back after the contest closes, to see the announcement of the winner and runners-up. I don’t know the exact date, but after some days for judging, it will appear in the Society of Classical Poets POETRY column, under the same picture that announced the competition, of a Japanese man playing a flute.
Reply to Margaret Coates Reply: ‘Thanks for your helpful clarification Margaret. Reviewing my submissions I spotted that ‘typo’
in the middle line of my third haiku – the word ‘sparrows’ should of course not begin with that capitalized ‘S’
Thanks again, John S.
Hidden under the barn
protected by the weather
a nest of swallow
I can barely see
through the verry flowered skirt
the flower of her body
the first butterfly
in the barely halfclosed flower-
messenger of spring
The rabbit runs scared
Hungry wolves snap at its feet
The life of taxpayers
I grab the old book
Hints of must and vanilla
A tear for Grandma
Old hands guide the young
Life and song cling to paper
Memories are formed
A pair of green flames
The flight of a sly black cat
-basking in shadows.
A young flower buds
A white man sheaths his bald head-
Beneath the sun’s smirk.
Love isolation?
Staring into the abyss
And finding freedom
sidewalk oozes heat
green bushes moan locust songs
I am oozing sweat
with winter waning
Canada geese honk-shoo-honk
Mr. Crow cackles
mustache is sweaty
as the lake rumbles thunder
sky downpours sweetly
my reflection in
the top of the toilet bowl
refused the Autumn
Night falls later now
Summer on the horizon
of my younger days
Over June’s west wind,
Autumns red sky approaches
unbeknownst to me